


Unexpected Help

by tortois



Series: enough ML salt to cause hypertension [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir Bashing, Adrien salt, Alya Césaire Bashing, Alya Salt, Bad Teacher Caline Bustier, Bisexual Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Chloé Bourgeois Redemption, F/F, Identity Reveal, Lesbian Chloé Bourgeois, Lila Rossi Bashing, Lila Rossi Lies, Lila Rossi's Lies Are Exposed, Manipulative Lila Rossi, Marinette Dupain-Cheng Needs a Hug, No Dialogue, No Lila Rossi Redemption, Principal Damocles Bashing (Miraculous Ladybug), bustier's class all need to grow a braincell, class salt, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:33:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24712417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tortois/pseuds/tortois
Summary: Marinette reflects on the past few months since Lila came to her school and threatened her. She didn't actually expect her to make good on her threats. As she lost all her old friends to Lila, she made a new one she never expected, who vows to bring down Lila Rossi once and for all.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Alya Césaire & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Alya Césaire/Nino Lahiffe, Chloé Bourgeois & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Chloé Bourgeois/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Nino Lahiffe
Series: enough ML salt to cause hypertension [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1839301
Comments: 52
Kudos: 1211





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in a couple of hours because I kept thinking about how Marinette deserves better and how we probably won't get this on the show!

As Marinette was rushing to get ready for school after sleeping past her alarm, the dread of going to school after a nice weekend sank in.

It had been several months. Several months since Lila Rossi had come to Collège Françoise Dupont and had since then made good on her promise of alienating Marinette from her friends. At first, Marinette hadn’t believed that it would be more than a few days before her classmates caught on to Lila’s lies. Unfortunately, she had vastly overestimated the people that were once her friends - not even the people that knew her since childhood believed her. Although some of her classmates were more hesitant to believe Lila than others, that didn’t change the fact that they didn’t stand up for her as the majority continued to ostracize her.

Nino and Kim - she couldn’t believe that out of everyone in the class, after all the years they were friends, after all the things she’s done for them, after all the days they spent with her at the bakery, that they would believe the things Lila’s claimed she’d done. They were supposed to know her better than everyone else in the class, even more so than Alya. Kim didn’t doubt Lila’s tales for a minute, despite Marinette’s warnings. Nino, on the other hand, was a bit more apprehensive and had more faith in Marinette at first. However, after Alya’s insistent belief that Lila never lied, he eventually sided with them. After all, his girlfriend’s a reporter and is insistent on checking sources. Therefore, she had to have checked Lila’s claims, right? Especially after posting Lila’s interviews on the Ladyblog? That’s why, despite Marinette’s pleas, he stopped believing her for good.

Alya, her former best friend (despite Alya still thinking they’re besties), was now Lila’s best friend, and refused to believe anything negative about her. At first, Marinette couldn’t blame Alya for believing Lila. After all, with how much Alya idolized Ladybug, she would also be excited to meet someone who claimed to be Ladybug’s best friend. But after all the lies about knowing Jagged Stone, and Prince Ali, among the many other celebrities she claimed to know, Marinette couldn’t believe that Alya continued to believe Lila when they could all be disproved by a simple Google search. In fact, she was surprised that Alya hadn’t asked Ladybug about Lila whenever Alya saw her after an akuma battle. For all the times Marinette was told to check her sources by Alya, she couldn’t be bothered to do the same? Even though Marinette laid out the groundwork for Alya to suspect something was off about Lila’s tales, her refusal to believe anything Marinette said, while chalking up her disbelief to simple jealousy, hurt her deeply. From someone who continued to claim to be her best friend, Alya stopped treating her like one long ago.

And Adrien, oh Adrien. Marinette’s obsession (albeit unhealthy) with him dwindled out two weeks after Lila came when he refused to do anything about her lies. She understood at first why he told her to take the high road, and that was because he was raised in an environment where he couldn’t speak out against injustice because of his father’s tight leash on him. However, Lila quickly manipulated the class into ostracizing Marinette, which took a toll on her mental health. A few months after Lila made good on her promise, she told Adrien that she couldn’t handle just taking the high road. He was quick to turn on her, telling her that as their Everyday Ladybug, she should understand that they can’t risk Lila’s akumatization by exposing her. He told her that she was supposed to be the better person and continued to say that him knowing the truth along with her should be enough. Marinette’s crush immediately extinguished, and she left Adrien standing alone in the locker room with tears streaming down her face as she felt Tikki patting her consolingly through her purse. When she came back to school the next day, the class assumed that Marinette refusing to speak to Adrien was her way of saying that Lila deserved to be with him instead. 

Although none of her former friends believed her, Nino’s, Kim’s, Alya’s, and Adrien’s betrayal hurt the most, as they were the closest to her, and were supposed to know her the best. However, there was one classmate who did believe her. Chloe Bourgeois, her former bully. Chloe immediately picked apart the lies but didn’t say anything when the other classmates bullied her at first, since her and Marinette weren’t friends. After a couple of days, when Chloe realized she was quickly losing her control over the class, she went up to Marinette and told her that she didn’t believe Lila’s stories, and never had. After staring at the blonde in disbelief, Marinette asked her why she was just telling her now. Chloe admitted that she initially came because she wanted to regain her ‘queen’ status over the class, which she realized she was losing when even Sabrina left Chloe to listen to Lila all the time. But, after noticing how downtrodden the noirette had become, she also apologized for bullying her over the years and promised to work to be a better person. 

Marinette, while hesitant, accepted the apology, but continued to be distrustful initially. However, after several weeks, it was evident to Marinette that Chloe really was trying. Although Chloe initially had setbacks, such as acting dismissive and snappish to Marinette out of reflex, she also swallowed her pride and constantly stood up for Marinette when the class continued to turn against her. However, this continued to paint Marinette in a bad light, as Lila claimed that the former bully is now working with the current bully to try to turn the class against her. The class believed Lila, and immediately tried to console her, while Alya, Kim, and Alix would shout at the duo for bullying Lila and Adrien would look at them disappointedly. Chloe simply rolled her eyes which enraged them more, while Marinette looked down at the desk. After, Chloe awkwardly tried to comfort Marinette, and from there a friendship started to form. For months, Chloe continued to be the only one to stand up for Marinette. After learning about what Adrien said to her, she even confronted Ms. Bustier about her lack of action about the class bullying Marinette. Like Adrien, Ms. Bustier claimed that Marinette wasn’t doing enough to make Lila feel comfortable, and that she should just go along with it in order to make Lila happy. Chloe immediately turned around and left the classroom, muttering curses under her breath.

For the next couple of weeks after Chloe’s conversation with Ms. Bustier, Marinette continued to get alienated by the class. First, she was forced out of her class president role, as her classmates wanted Lila instead. Lila, making herself look small and timid, claimed that she didn’t want to take the role from someone she’s been trying to make friends with, which only bolstered the class into insisting she should take up the role. So Lila did, with Alya continuing to serve as deputy. Next, there was an after-school class excursion to the Eiffel Tower, which Marinette was ‘conveniently’ not told about. After seeing her classmates’ photos of the trip on Instagram, Marinette figured out what happened. Chloe was immediately there for her, and invited her to her hotel where they dined at the 5-star restaurant. The next day at school, Marinette entered the class only to discover Chloe snapping at everyone as they stood around Marinette’s desk. It was then that she noticed that there were the torn remains of her sketchbook on her desk. At that moment, Chloe noticed that she walked in, and immediately started whispering promises to her that she’d buy her a new, better sketchbook. Marinette told her to not worry, as that was an old sketchbook as she stopped bringing her current sketchbook to school weeks before. Despite Marinette’s reassurances, she still looked defeated, and it was then that Chloe vowed to find all the evidence that would take down Lila Rossi once and for all.

As Marinette rushed into class, hoping to not be late, she noticed that something was off. For one, her classmates, minus Chloe, were all sitting in their seats and not surrounding Lila, hoping to hear another tale. She noticed that all her classmates were looking to the front in suspicion, while Lila looked shocked and a bit scared. It was then that Marinette noticed two people she didn’t recognize at the front of the class, standing beside Ms. Bustier, who looked cowed, Mr. Damocles, who looked sad, and Chloe, looking smug. As soon as Chloe noticed her run in, she immediately motioned her over while the class glared at her. Marinette looked at Chloe questioningly, and Chloe just smiled. One of the people Marinette didn’t recognize cleared her throat, gaining the attention of the class. She then launches into her speech.

Marinette stood in a daze and couldn’t remember much of what the person said. Later, Chloe would tell her that she hired the best lawyer in all of Paris after finding evidence to disprove all of Lila’s lies. She even got additional evidence by contacting all of the celebrities Lila mentioned, as she had a lot of connections from being the Mayor’s daughter. All of the celebrities were shocked to hear what Lila had been saying and got their respective legal teams to sue her for slander. The lawyer Chloe got also looked into Lila’s absences and ended up suing Lila for truancy as well as harassment. Then, the lawyer mentioned that the school board looked into how the school handled the obvious bullying and found that Mr. Damocles and Ms. Bustier were unfit to work at the school. 

When Marinette realized that the speech ended, she noticed the other person she didn’t recognize stare at Lila in horror while Lila tried to use her crocodile tears to convince her that everything the lawyer said was Marinette’s fault. It was when the woman started yelling at Lila in Italian that she realized she was Lila’s mother. As the rest of the class looked on in dawning horror, realizing the implications of everything they’ve been doing for the past several months, Marinette smiled gratefully at Chloe as a weight was finally lifted off her shoulders after several months. Chloe noticed, and was glad that the nicest, most genuine person she knew was finally getting the closure she deserved. As their classmates started to yell in disbelief at Lila, Chloe took Marinette’s hand and pulled her out of the class. She figured that Marinette could deal with all of that stuff later. As the door closed behind them, their classmates looked on in shock as Marinette pulled Chloe in for a sweet kiss.


	2. The Aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There were a few requests for the aftermath with the class, so here it is!

Everyone gaped at the door for two minutes after it closed before Bustier’s class dissolved into a cacophony of yells. If you were to ask someone walking by on the street, they would’ve claimed that they heard an explosion go off in the school.

Ms. Bustier and Mr. Damocles tried to get the class to calm down to no avail, as they were shellshocked as well. Although they found out about Lila before the class did, they still couldn’t believe that the model pupil was actually a compulsive liar and bully.

Not even Lila’s mother tried to silence the class, as she was busy scolding Lila herself. Many thoughts were racing through everyone’s minds: What did we do to Marinette? How are we going to make it up to her? Will she ever forgive us?

Lila’s mother finally took Lila out of the class, followed by Ms. Bustier and Mr. Damocles, telling them that classes were cancelled for the rest of the day in light of recent events. The students all looked at one another ashamedly. Only one student looked disappointed, if not a bit annoyed, while the rest of the students looked irate. The majority of the class noticed this and were quick to question it.

Alya was the first to speak up. She asked Adrien what if anything was wrong. It was then that he sheepishly admitted to knowing that Lila was lying the whole time, and that he didn’t think Marinette would stoop to this level to call her out.

The class was speechless for a second before collectively rounding on Adrien. Nino couldn’t believe that his best friend would hide this from him. Alya also felt betrayed on behalf of her boyfriend. Kim and Alix expressed their disappointment, as they claimed that if he had told them the truth, they wouldn’t have continued to fall for Lila’s lies, to which the class agreed. Adrien weakly argued that Lila’s lies weren’t hurting anyone, and besides, they didn’t believe Marinette, who was their friend longer than he was, so why would they believe him?

Everyone looked ashamed at the latter point, especially Alya, Nino, and Kim. However, they were quick to point out how Lila’s lies hurt them. Lila had promised Nino meetings with several people in the music business, and his best friend didn’t think to tell him that she was raising his hopes for nothing? Alya, shaking with anger, said that Lila said she’d get her internships with top reporters. Max said that she claimed to know the best of the best in computer science. The rest of the class listed similar reasons. Despite the reasons listed by his classmates, Adrien shook his head and said that Lila was just making white lies to fit in and make friends. While it wasn’t right of her to do so, he claimed, they weren’t damaging in the long run. He continued to insist that Marinette shouldn’t have ruthlessly gone after her in front of the whole class and waited for Lila to slip up and expose herself like he initially told her. This time, everyone else in the class expressed their disappointment in Adrien. As everyone exited the class, thinking about what just transpired, Max brought up how it was obvious that it was Chloe was the one to bring in the lawyer since Marinette looked as confused as everyone else when she entered the class.

The next day, Marinette walked into the class with Chloe a bit nervously, only to find the whole class staring at the door she just entered. Once she entered, everyone but Adrien rushed towards her, shouting their apologies while looking ashamed and teary eyed. Marinette looked overwhelmed for a second but stood her ground firmly while Chloe stared unimpressed at the class. Marinette quieted down her classmates, while mentally preparing herself for the things she was about to say. First, she explained how hurt she was by how quickly everyone deserted her for Lila. When how she tried to encourage them to do their own research on her claims, they easily dismissed their longtime friend, rather than the new student, as a liar instead.

Her classmates looked ashamed at that and some were starting to speak before Marinette silenced them with a hand, indicating that she wasn’t done. She went on to say that while she didn’t blame them for believing Lila at first, it was the fact that done of them decided listen to her and factcheck that hurt. Especially Alya and Max, as they were known for finding the truth. Marinette pointed out how Alya was a hypocrite, as Alya told her to check her sources to prove that Lila was lying, but she didn’t check to prove that Lila was telling the truth. After all, you can’t prove a negative. She continued to point out that some of Lila’s claims, such as her saving Jagged’s kitten and her meeting Prince Ali could be easily disproven. Even if the class didn’t believe Marinette at the beginning, when she said that Jagged never had a kitten or that Lila was never in Achu, there were people in the class that knew those celebrities. Marinette said that the class knew that she knew Jagged Stone, as she designed his glasses and album cover, and could easily get in contact with him. She also pointed out that Rose was in contact with Prince Ali and was therefore easy to disprove Lila sooner.

Most of her classmates were in tears at this point as Marinette continued to point out what they did wrong. However, Marinette continued to explain just how much they hurt her. It would have been one thing if they just believed her claims of knowing several celebrities, as those were fairly harmless lies. However, believing that Marinette was bullying Lila, despite having been bullied herself by Chloe for most of her life? How they supported Lila’s claims that she bullied her out of jealousy despite supporting Kagami on their double date? And, despite all this, she never once lashed out at anyone, physically or verbally? That Lila only claimed that Marinette physically bullied her when they were alone, despite having no proof of injury? That when Lila said Marinette pushed her down the stairs, she could walk perfectly fine and didn’t have any bruises or bumps? And most importantly, that the class believed Lila’s claims so much, some of them resorted to bullying Marinette themselves, while the rest just watched?

Marinette wasn’t planning on getting this emotional in front of everyone, but every thought she’s been having since Lila came to the school came spilling out. Chloe stepped closer to Marinette for support while she continued. Marinette wanted to know why no one believed her. Why her friendship meant nothing to them the second Lila made those claims against her. Why, after everything she’s done for them while they were friends - and at this, the class finally realized that Marinette no longer considered any of them friends - they chose not to believe her or stick up for her. Why they were so insistent on believing Lila. She had a pretty good idea, but she wanted to hear it from their mouths. One by one, the class spoke up. How Lila promised them meetings, internships, and several other ways to support their individual dreams and goals.

Marinette knew that was the case, but to hear it from them disappointed her more, and it showed. She crossed her arms and stared the class down and shook her head as the class continued to justify their reasons. She opened her mouth to go off on one last tirade. She explained how this confirmed her suspicions that the class only believed Lila for what she could give them, rather than them genuinely wanting to be her friend. That if Lila wasn’t actually able to back up her promises, which she wasn’t going to be able to, they would’ve no longer been her friend. That this proved to her that the class only liked her because she used to give them stuff, but that was nothing compared to what Lila promised to give them, and so they believed her because they wanted to stay on her good side so she wouldn’t rescind her offers. That everything Marinette did for them, whether it be babysitting when Alya and Nino wanted to go on a date, helping everyone whenever she could, creating time consuming designs for the class, bringing in free baked goods from her parents’ bakery - nothing was good enough for them, as was evidenced by how they refused to listen to her and instead totally turned on her.

After emotionally exhausting herself, Marinette stopped and took a breath while the class continued to look shamefaced but were slightly hopeful that she’d accept their apology as Marinette wasn’t placing the blame solely on them. After all, because of her speech, they knew where they went wrong, and they couldn’t help it if they wanted to believe Lila, right? After all, Marinette was obsessed with Adrien in the past (although they didn’t expect her to be with Chloe now), so jealousy was a valid reason to doubt her. Even though Marinette had brought up valid points about how she wouldn’t bully someone, jealous or not, how were they to know?

But then Marinette said that she wouldn’t accept their apologies for the reasons she mentioned earlier. Years of friendship, gone, over a girl who told pretty tales. Although some of the class were expecting this response, everyone was still shocked. After all, Marinette was always forgiving in the past! She wouldn’t just refuse to forgive them, right?

But Marinette, after help from Chloe days before, realized she didn’t owe the class anything when they apologized. They were the ones to desert her, bully her, and now they were asking for forgiveness because they wanted everything to go to what it once was? When Marinette was a doormat and couldn’t say no to any of them? Even though Chloe was her tormentor for many years, she proved how deeply regretful she was when she was willing to explicitly be on her side in front of the class, Marinette rationalized. Marinette went on to explain that all of this proved that they must not have been her true friends, and while they clearly feel regretful, it was too late. She said that maybe one day she could forgive them, but they would have to show that they were truly sorry, and that they shouldn’t try to force her to accept their apologies in the meantime. She would talk to them about it when she was ready.

Just then, their new teacher walked into the class with an improved teaching plan, ready to start the day. The class walked dejectedly to their seats, passing by a disgruntled Adrien, who hadn’t joined the group in apologizing to Marinette the whole time. Chloe and Marinette sat in their seats at the back, with Chloe enthusing how proud she was of Marinette. Marinette sat down, feeling lighter than she had in a long time, took out her books and was ready for the day ahead.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
 _The evening before._

Marinette was happy. Happier than she’d been in a long time, thanks to her girlfriend Chloe dethroning Lila in front of the class, once and for all. Not only that, she had patrol tonight, with another one of her favourite people, Chat Noir. She noticed it was almost time to meet him, so she quickly transformed into Ladybug and swung off to their meeting spot, at the Eiffel Tower. She noticed that Chat Noir was already there, and was about to excitedly call out for him, but she noticed that he looked dejected. His back was to her and he was sitting, but he was slightly hunched over, which was fairly uncommon.

Once she landed on the tower, she asked him if he was okay. He didn’t respond immediately, which concerned her even more. But once he started explaining his story, Marinette’s heart dropped as she heard a too familiar tale. Chat Noir didn’t go into specifics but went on to explain how there was a girl in his class who told a few fibs. Sure, that’s not the right thing to do, but she clearly just wanted to make friends. After all, the lies weren’t too bad, and weren’t hurting anyone. But then, another girl in the class tried to call her out on her lies, which he didn’t agree with. He didn’t want her to risk getting akumatized by Hawkmoth, and he couldn’t blame her for wanting to make friends. The more the other girl tried to call the liar out, the more he tried to dissuade her from it. The girl, he explained, was generally a very sweet person, so he didn’t understand why she would go to those lengths. After all, she hadn’t gotten akumatized so far because she was strong, but the liar had. What good would revealing the lies do?

As Chat Noir continued to talk, Marinette grew paler and paler. The story was exactly the same as what had happened to her. Marinette tried to rationalize that this happened in another school, and that Chat Noir wasn’t who she thought he was. After all, the way Chat Noir was speaking was eerily reminiscent of what Adrien Agreste once told her. However, Marinette knew who all the akumatized victims were. With the majority of them being from her class, and none that she could recall from other classes or schools, she gulped as she came to the realization on who Chat Noir was. Marinette hadn’t realized she whispered Adrien’s name questioningly until she looked up to see him staring at her in shock. She continued to stare at him until realization flickered across his face. Marinette, not yet prepared for the conversation she was about to have, quickly got up, stating that she’d take the south side of the city while he’d take the north.

She quickly used her yoyo to swing away, while a million thoughts were running through her mind. When she got back to her room, she told Tikki what had happened. Marinette was glad that Tikki didn’t blame her for anything that happened, and that she understood why Marinette didn’t stick around to talk. Tikki told her that she would have to face him eventually. Marinette agreed, and said that she would do so tomorrow, as she knew she would be facing her classmates. Meanwhile, across the city, Adrien couldn’t believe that their Everyday Ladybug was actually Ladybug. While he felt a little bit guilty at what his words subjected Marinette to, he believed that she still should’ve taken the high road in order to keep the peace in the class. Oh, well, he figured. Marinette would likely forgive him and the class tomorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic, so please be nice!


End file.
